I am officially old. I have moved to the forward tees. I mean the way forward ones, the geezer tees. Now, before you starts snickering, chortling and demanding my man card, hear me out. I am not ashamed at all that I have moved up in the tee box. As a matter of fact, I find it very liberating. Golf is, after all, a game. And as a game, it is meant to be enjoyed. And as I have found out from hitting from the forward tees, it is a lot more enjoyable putting for birdies and pars than double and triple bogeys.
I have come to understand and appreciate the words of Dirty Harry/Clint Eastwood, “A man’s got to know his limitations.” I know and fully understand my limitations. First and foremost, in my prime I could get it out about two sixty from the tee box. Those days are long gone. Take away about forty or fifty from that today and you’re right in my wheelhouse. I have also lost about fifteen to twenty yards off of my irons. After one particularly frustrating day of hitting driver, three irons and pitching wedges into par fours, I decided it was time to move on up.
I have made enough trips around the sun to qualify for playing from the forward tees. And a goodly portion of those trips have been spent in the sun on the golf course. Over the course of those trips I have moved from the men’s tees up to the member’s. I never played from the tips. A man’s got to know his limitations. But some of us either never learn our limitations or refuse to acknowledge them. I have seen and still see guys who should be at least one or maybe two tee boxes up playing from the tips. I have never understood that. Golf is hard enough as it is without making it even more difficult by hitting from tees that are for players considerably above your skill level.
Maybe it’s an ego thing. A guy I used to play with fairly regularly would try to lure me to the back tees all the time. When I refused, he would respond by making barnyard poultry noises and questioning my manhood. It didn’t bother me because I would always beat him, if you counted the drops he took and the putts he missed.
“I want to see the whole course.” I’ve heard this for years from mid to high handicappers who insist on playing the back tees. Most of the time they wind up seeing a lot of the course they shouldn’t or were never meant to see, including woods, bunkers, the bottom of water hazards and a whole lot of fairway that was not meant for players of their caliber.
I once had the privilege of playing the Atlanta Athletic Club’s Highlands Course, the site of the U.S. Open and two PGA championships. My friend Barry’s company was one of the sponsors for the U.S. Junior Amateur. The club was conducting a tournament for the sponsors the day following the competition, with the course set up exactly the same and us hitting from the tees the kids played from. Barry was good enough to invite me to play and it was an experience I will never forget. At the meeting on the morning of the tournament, the director told us that the format was being changed from best ball to a scramble. Guys began to grumble. “Why has it been changed to a scramble?” asked one wise gentleman. “Quite honestly, because we looked at the handicaps,” said the director. “Well, maybe I want to know what I would shoot on a course like this,” replied the wise gentleman. The director kind of laughed and said, “Trust me, sir, you don’t want to know what you’d shoot on a course like this.” And he was right, too. By the time we were in the second fairway we figured out that we didn’t stand a snowball’s chance of even smelling fifteenth place, so we might as well go for every shot. And we had a blast. I was driving the ball pretty good that day, getting it out to about my usual two sixty. Another player in our group could crank it out about two eighty or two ninety. We would ride out to our balls only to find that we had barely made the fairway and were still looking at a one hundred and ninety yard shot into a par four. It was a game with which I was not familiar.
Unlike in other sports, golf skills deteriorate very slowly, so much so that we either cannot see or refuse to acknowledge them. But there comes a time when we realize that we are a little longer in the tooth than we used to be and it is time to face our limitations. I have done that. My friend Bob recently taught me a pitch and run shot with the seven iron. It has become my go-to shot from about fifty or sixty yards in. Bob, incidentally, is ninety two and still gets around eighteen holes pretty well. We should all be so lucky.
So now I play old man golf. I hit my drive, pitch it on and putt. I use the putter from way off the green when I can. This morning I shot an 89. I cannot remember the last time I broke 90. Before I moved on up, I was consistently in triple figures. Breaking 90 is a lot more fun than shooting triple figures.
I’ll probably play from the forward tees from now on. And I’m not embarrassed in the least. But if I ever get to the point where I hit from up there, demand strokes and complain about all of the ailments and maladies that have befallen me, then go ahead and snicker. Chortle away and demand my man card. I’ll be more than happy to relinquish it, if I can only remember where I put the stupid thing.